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Reference Design for vRealize Network Insight on Cloud Foundation

In the Summer of 2020 I spent quite a bit of my spare time digging in and learning adjacent product and cloud technologies. One of the products that landed in my view was vRealize Network Insight. At the same time, my intent was to eventually include this in a VMware Validated Design / VMware Cloud Foundation general release. While the content that I authored during my exploration was not prioritized for an official release, the design was in an Early Access format for a Reference Design.

As a result, I'm happy to share the reference design that follows the same detailed design approach we use in the VMware Validated Design. The design is authored with the default design objective to support up to 10K virtual machines and 2M flows but can be scaled up, as needed. In addition, the design can support single-region and future expansion to multi-region (or multi-instance) Cloud Foundation.

Shutdown and Startup a vSphere with Kubernetes Workload Domain

In the last couple of days I've been doing some testing for a VMware Validated Design 6.0.x deployment which, of course, consumes VMware Cloud Foundation 4.0.x. By now, most have heard of vSphere 7 with Kubernetes and Tanzu Kubernetes Cluster which can be deployed in the design - but do you known how do you gracefully shutdown a workload domain and perform a graceful startup from a cold state?

After quite a bit of testing, I'm happy to share the process that I use to perform the processes.

vRealize Suite Account Expirations and Password Requirements

A quick post to share some handy content on the account expidations and password required across vRealize Suite 2019 based on some recent work I've done on the VMware Validated Design 6.0.x release. Enjoy!

Table: Users and Password Expirations

Appliance Version Application User Default Expiration Interactive User Default Expiration SSH User Default Expiration
vRSLCM 8.x admin@local Never root 365 days root 365 days
vRLI 8.x Admin Never root 365 days root 365 days
vROPS 8.x admin Never admin 365 days root 365 days
vRA 8.x N/A N/A root Never root Never
vRNI 5.2 admin@local Never admin@local Never support and consoleuser Never

vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager 1.2 Ports and Protocols, Feature URLs, and Service Account Privileges

Behind the scenes in VMware R&D I have been working closely with the product management and engineering team for vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager to improve the experience and workflows.

Three questions that I'm often asked are:

  1. What ports and protocols does vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager use for communications?
  2. What URLs must be accessible by my organization to use some vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager Features (e.g., My VMware, Marketplace, Product Updates, and the in-product Compatibility Guide)?
  3. What permissions are required for a custom role that can be used as a service account for vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager to vSphere communications?

Well, you're in luck. I can answer this where the documentation currently falls short.

VMware Validated Design for SDDC 4.1 Generally Available

As we prepare to head VMworld 2017 in both Las Vegas and Barcleona, we're excited to announce that today, we've released the VMware Validated Deisign for Software-Defined Data Center 4.1 - continuing VMware commitment to delivering standardized, proven, and robust data-center level designs for the Software-Defined Data Center.

The VMware Validated Designs provide our customers and partners comprehensive, prescriptive guidance to plan, build, and operate a Software-Defined Data Center. The designs are extensively tested to ensure all components and their specific versions are validated to work in unison, to scale to predetermined design objectives, and operate as our customers expect.

As with any release, let's jump in a cover what's new in this release.